Malcolm Jones, co-author of a volume of retold Brer Rabbit stories (minus the tar baby and Uncle Remus): “The book got good reviews and sold well enough to justify two sequels. If there was any protest, it never got back to me. Still I always felt like we’d gotten away with something, even if I wasn’t sure what. Because when you take a stroll through the territory of children’s literature, you’d better know where the land mines are buried.”
Tag: 01.30.16
Why The Oxford Dictionary Is Sexist (And Why It Matters)
“Oxford Dictionaries tried to deflect blame, protesting that its entries merely reflect language as it is and has historically been used. But as a source of authority regarding word usage, the dictionary helps to create and normalize that usage, and thus should hold itself to a higher level of scrutiny.”
A Poet’s Renaissance, And Everyone’s Sunday Night Secrets
Eileen Myles: “In 1977, I probably would have been out getting trashed the night before and so the wake-up would be filled with so much dread. I wake up and I don’t feel in a state of existential dread. I wake up with a sense of wonder. I don’t dread the future. I like it. Because this is it. But I still hit the coffee hard.”
Yes, We Are All Critics, And That’s Just Fine (Says A Professional Critic)
“The making of art — popular or fine, abstruse or accessible, sacred or profane — is one of the glories of our species. We are uniquely endowed with the capacity to fashion representations of the world and our experience in it, to tell stories and draw pictures, to organize sound into music and movement into dance. Just as miraculously, we have the ability, even the obligation, to judge what we have made.”
Publishing Times Are Changing As Erotic (& Other) Book Self-Publishers Create Imprints Of Their Own
“Just like the old-guard editors and publishing companies that they once defined themselves against, these new imprints promise to anoint fledgling authors with legitimacy and give them an edge in a flooded and cutthroat marketplace.”
Disney Animated Movies Taught An Autistic Boy To Speak, And Now There’s A Movie About Him
“We ask parents all the time: What is your child’s passion? And they come up with all sorts of things: dinosaurs, maps, Harry Potter, Thomas the Tank Engine, Star Wars. We’ve surveyed thousands of people with these challenges and most have some video-related affinity. The passion is almost always one of a video nature. They can stop and rewind the images, slow it down and use them like the Dead Sea Scrolls to figure out social interactions; to hold a mirror up to the themselves.”
The Globe Is Taking Its All-Country ‘Hamlet’ To The Refugee Camp In Calais Known As ‘The Jungle’
“We’re here for the people who need stimulus… they are in an environment that is not providing any excitement [or] nourishment for the brain.”
Carol Burnett Takes On Gender Discrimination In Comedy (Again)
“I had a terrific and unheard-of contract that said that all I had to do was push the button, and the network would have to give me 30 one-hour variety shows. Yeah. And I told them that that’s what I wanted to do. But they said ‘Carol, no no no no, look. All the comedy variety shows are hosted by men. Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, now Dean; comedy variety is a man’s game.’ Mm-mm. No.”
The Things We Learned At (And From) Sundance
Nick Jonas is a decent actor, Netflix & Amazon are big players, next year’s Oscars probably won’t be so white and much more.
SAG Awards Thumb Their Noses At The All-White Oscars, And Reward ‘Spotlight’ Too
“‘This is what happens when you have the SAG group — a group of very diverse people who understand the work that we all put in and that we all deserve the same opportunities,’ Queen Latifah told The Times backstage. ‘That’s about it. I feel very positive about this day.'”